What do women really want?

What do women really want? My guess would be a chocolate-covered millionaire with a fist full of shoes. The reality is (at least concerning women in IT) women want more women in IT. Check this out:

Last month, a panel of highly successful businesswomen met in Morristown, N.J., to discuss the current environment for women in IT and its effect on recruiting, retention and women’s careers. The forum was sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of the Society for Information Management, and it drew one of the biggest crowds in that chapter’s history. Seven of the participants agreed to meet again, virtually, with Computerworld’s Kathleen Melymuka.

As we enter the 21st century, what’s new about the problems of women in IT?

Weaver: Now that IT is evolving to focus on information technology as an enabler of business, it’s becoming more conducive to women’s being able to embrace IT and excel. Now it’s about understanding the business and delivering technology to help enable and grow the business versus “Here’s the next new box to deploy.”

Scites: IT used to be so much of an individual contributor world, but that world is changing. Every operation is a team operation. There are multiple disciplines for IT and many ways in which women can succeed. But the fundamental issue for women is that very few are going into IT.

Walk: By 2012, computer professionals will be 11% of the total work population in the U.S. By 2031, we will have a 35 million-person labor shortage. In 2030, women in management and professional occupations will be 54% of the workplace. We’ll have a huge need to develop women in all professional groups.

READ: What IT Women Want

Math is where the money is…

Some students spend their college years peering into a microscope or scrutinizing graphs and formulas. Others are more likely to analyze dense prose or write insightful essays. They may earn similar grades, but when it comes time to look for jobs, it often seems the students with a knack for numbers see the bigger payoff.

College students graduating in 2004-05 with a math- or science-related degree are likely to earn significantly higher starting pay than their peers in liberal arts disciplines, according to a February survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

According to the survey, chemical engineering students graduating in 2005 reported snagging job offers with an average salary of about $53,700. Computer science grads reported average offers of around $51,000. Accounting grads got offers of about $43,000 and economics/finance majors’ offers averaged roughly $40,700.

By contrast, liberal arts graduates reported average offers of about $29,100.

This leaves scores of history, philosophy and English majors fuming: Why do math and science degrees seem to be more valuable?

READ: Math and Science Degrees More Valuable Than Liberal Arts? – Career Advice Article

How to quit your job, but work there at the same time.

Jon Lieb was working as the communications manager for The Greenberg Group, a real-estate-consulting firm in Long Island, New York, when a few people in quick succession asked if he was available for some free-lance work. It made him think the time could be right to go out on his own.

Working for himself was something he’d always wanted to do, but he wanted one solid, steady client to get him going. So he came up with a plan to outsource his own job. His boss, Steven Greenberg, “listened to my reasoning, that he would get the same level of results from me in a more cost-effective way,” Mr. Lieb recalls.

Mr. Greenberg agreed, and arranged for Mr. Lieb to work in the office once a week and be available by phone as needed on the other days in exchange for a retainer. Now Mr. Lieb has a half-dozen clients as well as Greenberg. The deal he struck isn’t the one he’d negotiate as a seasoned consultant (he charges other clients an hourly rate). But Mr. Lieb says his former boss has given him referrals and sends him to represent the company at events where he can network with other potential clients. Most importantly, he says, the arrangement gave him a low-risk way to strike out on his own.

If you’ve been longing to join that crowd of free agents, but don’t know where you’d turn to find that crucial first client, take a cue from Mr. Lieb and look around your office.

How to Get Your Ex-Employer To Become Your Client

As refreshing as lemonade…

“Fast 500 CEOs are confident that the economy and their businesses are poised for growth,” said Tony Kern, a principal with Deloitte & Touche LLP and deputy national managing principal of Deloitte’s U.S. TMT industry practice. “Tech CEOs are focused on facilitating that growth by improving internal operations and hiring and retaining talent, rather than on external issues, such as economic conditions and geopolitical instability.”

Ninety-five percent of the CEOs have plans to grow their workforce. Forty-two percent indicate plans to add at least 25 percent more employees in the next 12 months, while 19 percent have plans to add more than 50 percent.

High-quality employees are the greatest contributors to success, according to 25 percent of respondents, up from 19 percent last year. However, finding, hiring and retaining qualified employees remain CEOs’ biggest operational challenge at 27 percent, the same as last year.

READ: Survey: Top CEOs bullish on the future

Put your best foot forward…

Typographical errors and unclear formats are common mistakes people make when creating resumes. These errors can doom an applicant

13 year-old grrl wonder presents at Linux Conference…

Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Garbee may not know as much about Linux as her father Bdale Garbee, Linux CTO for HP and former Debian Project Leader, but that won’t stop her from presenting at linux.conf.au 2005.

Elizabeth, who has had a computer since she turned two, has been running Debian since the time she was nine. According to her bio on the conference speaker

Honk if you like traffic!

MSN Autos now offers Microsoft Alerts! This free service lets you receive real-time traffic alerts through your MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger, your e-mail, or your mobile device. You decide how and when you receive these messages by specifying your preferences during the easy setup process. If you have ever been stuck in traffic, then you can appreciate the coolness of this freebie. Check it out at: Traffic Alerts – MSN Autos

Here’s something you don’t see everyday…

It’s not exactly the kind of want ad you’d see in The Wall Street Journal or on a 3-by-5 card posted at the supermarket.

“I am willing to come to your home to teach all the residents the proper method of putting on a new roll of toilet paper. History will be explained. Technique will be demonstrated and all participants will have the opportunity to practice in real-life situations. All participants will be awarded with a certificate of completion and a 4-pack roll of 2-ply toilet paper. Note: Only the ‘Roll Over’ method is used.”

It’s from Katherine Howard, a licensed professional counselor, and was posted recently on the OutRaGeouS job listings site, part of the tribe.net Internet community.

Oh, what a community.

On the site you can find fire-breathing ministers, graffiti artists and spell-casting witches (“get money, win love or curse enemies!”) offering their services.

READ: Unusual jobs are the norm at site

Geeks today, gone tomorrow…

Survey results from the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles (HERI/UCLA) show that the popularity of computer science (CS) as a major among incoming freshmen has dropped significantly in the past four years. Alarmingly, the proportion of women who thought that they might major in CS has fallen to levels unseen since the early 1970s. The percentage of incoming undergraduates indicating that they would major in CS declined by over 60 percent between the Fall of 2000 and 2004, and is now 70 percent lower than its peak in the early 1980s.

Check out: Computing Research News

Women are putting power in their lunches

Diane K. Danielson is the founder and executive director of the Downtown Women’s Club, a national Boston-based networking association. She is also co-author of “Table Talk: The Savvy Girl’s Alternative to Networking.” She urges women to chew on the following:

- “The biggest mistake women make is to work through lunch. In the course of a one-hour lunch, valuable information is swapped and relationships are cemented, and no amount of e-mail exchanges or online research that you attempt while spilling soup in your lap can make up for it.”

- “Lunch with co-workers can be just as productive as lunch with clients. When men in the office get together for lunch, women should invite themselves along. I did this a decade ago, and my jaw dropped at the amount of information they shared over a sandwich–information I would never have been privy to otherwise, not because they wanted to keep it from me but because I was never around when it came up.”

- “Working mothers have time constraints. As a single mom, I stick to CLCs–coffees, lunches or cocktails–for networking. Sit-down dinners can drag on forever.”

Click here for the full story